RE: [PEN-L:27676] Re: e: Imperialism in decline?James Devine writes: <I disagree. Marx showed very clearly that capitalism need not suffer from chronic realization problems, i.e., that it was _possible_ for surplus-value to be realized internal to the system. >
- But Marx did not succeed in passing from the "simple reproduction" to the expanded one. Even in the 48th chapter of vol.3, after having previously claimed that the question did not matter, he continued looking for the realization of surplus value within the circulation process. Only dogmatism and devotion or reverence can explain that most Marxists still believe that Marx has solved the problem of accumulation process. Rosa Luxemburg did it. But her solution did not fit Lenin's theory of "proletariat diktatorship", nor Stalin's permanent terror, assassinations and internments this theory justified. < (...) in some eras (such as our own) wages are pushed down relative to labor productivity, so that realization problems due to under-consumption are always in the wings. > - Wages pushed down are in not any case source of underconsumption (if not temporily in a frictionnal unbalance), as it is a transfer from the labor cost to the capital one, that is a transfer of consumption. As Marx mentioned it: a transfer to luxurious production and consumption. As for the overproduction tendency, it is related to the rise in prices with respect to the global distributed monetary purchasing power, as Juglar's works have demonstrated it. < (...) Lenin's theory (though somewhat crude, as one might expect from a pamphlet that he himself saw as inferior to Bukharin's contribution) is one of a structural tension, one of capitalists continuously being _pushed_ by circumstances to struggle with each other to attain monopoly. As with Marx, Lenin's vision of capitalism doesn't start with human-nature metaphysics (the maximizing consumer, etc.) but with the structure of the system. > - But what is the mysterious force that through the circumstances continuously pushes capitalists to struggle with each other to attain monopoly, if not the nature of capitalists? Where is then the relation to the system, if not in the propensity to accumulate ever more profit? < A full Marxian analysis would include both the structural tensions that push individual capitalists to expand _and_ the conditions that allow the "organic" whole to engage in relatively harmonious expanded reproduction. > - Which are the"structural tensions that push individual capitalist to expand"? Were they not pulsions? < When these clash -- as they regularly do -- we see economic (and sometimes social and political) crises. One solution to this kind of mess is geographical expansion, though that kind of solution (like others) doesn't solve the structural problems that produce capitalist crises. > - What are "these" clashing? Why do they regularly do? Expansion indeed does not solve the structural problems, it only shifts them. But it increases accumulation. Did not colonialism do it ? < (...) I wouldn't call it "censored." It might be out of print, but that's because of low demand. I know that I have several of her books. -I do not know about the USA, but I can tell you that in France Rosa Luxemburg and her master work "Die Akkumulation des Kapitals" are mentioned in not any education program among the authors and works to be studied. And for having written a thesis prolonging Luxemburg's works, I am still barred from defending it. Barred by Marxists! > . < (...) we don't need Luxemburg's analysis to understand that capitalism often faced limits that cause profitability problems that are often solved via geographical expansion. > - May be you do not need, but it is Rosa Luxemburg who first wrote it. Additionally, geographical expansion does not often but always solve crises. Is not imperialist war the recurrent mean of escaping a crisis? Best regards, James RK
